


Over The Hills And Far, Far Away

by MikazukiMunechika305



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Alternate Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-10-25 02:31:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10754892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MikazukiMunechika305/pseuds/MikazukiMunechika305
Summary: “Let’s all go together—over the hills and far, far away.”When Doll can't sleep, she visits Joker in his tent. {Post-Book Of Circus. AU in which the Circus guys survive.}





	Over The Hills And Far, Far Away

**Author's Note:**

> Actually I wrote this OS one year and a half ago when I first read the entire Kuroshitsuji manga... then I posted it on a German website [https://www.fanfiktion.de/s/563d1f220003fc6717781a4b/1/Over-The-Hills-And-Far-Far-Away], and now that I watched the Circus musical, I finally got around to posting it here as well.  
> The theory here is that all the Circus guys have survived (except for Kelvin and the Doctor), and, well. It's basically my way of trying to give them a happy end because I love them so incredibly much. I think they're my favorite Kuroshitsuji characters ever, and there are many characters I like, so that means a lot.
> 
> Anyways, I hope you can enjoy this a little, and please think about leaving me a review! ^-^

“Joker…?” she asked, carefully pushing aside his tent’s flysheet. “Are you here, Joker?”  
“Doll?” his voice resounded, gently, friendly—not as loud and happy as it was when he was standing in the middle of the main tent and greeting the visitors.  
Doll looked down to the ground quietly. “I… I can’t sleep. Now, since Father’s dead… And I got the first-tier tent… Smile’s gone. I feel lonely, Joker,” she mumbled.  
Joker stood up from his bed and took a few steps towards her. “You can sleep here, then.”  
That was what she loved him for. And probably was what the others loved him for as well—Beast, Peter, Wendy and whoever else had ever spent a night with him like this.  
She loved how different he can be. Joker wasn’t just the clown everyone sees him as, but he also was a big brother to everyone in the circus.  
“Thanks, Joker…”  
“Never mind. Ya know, ya can always tell me if you’ve got a problem.” He smiled at her and Doll couldn’t do anything but to smile herself. “Ya look good when yer smilin’,” he said and her smile grew a little wider.  
She didn’t get to hear such a compliment very often. Everyone liked watching her walking above their heads under the tent’s roof, but nobody saw her as the person she really was. Well, that wasn’t really possible, considering how few people she showed her real self. You could count them on one or two hands.  
Doll entered Joker’s tent and sat down on his bed, waiting for him to join her. “Thanks, Joker,” she said again.  
“What’re ya thankin’ me for now?”  
“For everything. You’re doing so much for us, especially now, after Smile…”  
“Don’t think that much about Smile. ‘course he was nice, but I’ve always felt he couldn’t get used to us,” the orange-haired said and touched her shoulder lightly with his hand—with his prosthesis, as she felt from the coolness and hardness. “And there was something wrong with Black and Suit as well.”  
“You’re right, but… who would ever have thought that Smile is actually Ciel Phantomhive?” she blurted out and defiantly looked up at Joker with her good eye. “Even if you’re saying there was something wrong with them, you’re still the one who took them in!”  
“Doll,” Joker muttered in surprise. Never before had he seen the brown-haired girl like this. She didn’t seem particularly upset or angry, but like something was bothering her. “What’re ya talkin’ about?”  
“When he was walking across that tightrope,” she whispered. “He would’ve fallen if Black hadn’t thrown pebbles to push his body into the right direction. And Dagger’s knives… they would’ve fallen too, if Black hadn’t thrown some pebbles to make them hit the target. I’m sorry, Joker… for not telling you.”  
Joker looked down at her in surprise; then he smiled tenderly. “It’s okay, Doll. All of us have their little secrets, right? And that was yours. Because you liked him.”  
“What?!” As if he had caught her doing something forbidden, Doll looked up—suddenly blushing furiously enough to rival a tomato. “Where’s that idea coming from?!”  
“Well, from the way you looked at him… the way you behaved when he was around… the way you cared for him when he was sick…”  
“Joker,” she quietly interrupted him. “I… didn’t love Ciel Phantomhive. I didn’t even like him.”  
“Huh?”  
“I loved Smile. In the beginning, I didn’t know that Smile was just an act… but when I realized it, I still believed that a part of Smile was real. That he was more than an act. Smile was… cute. He was like…”  
“…like the Ciel Phantomhive from before,” Joker gently finished for her. “Guess he dug out his last memory of Smile to smile at us. The Smile we knew—we believed to know—doesn’t exist anymore. Ever since the Phantomhive manor burned.”  
Doll opened her mouth to say something else, but he interrupted her. “Hey, Doll. Lie down and sleep a little now. We’ll have important rehearsals tomorrow.”  
With a nod of agreement, she curled up in his bed, trying to leave him as much space as possible.  
Thanks to the warm hand—not his prosthesis anymore—stroking her back in a calming way, she fell asleep quickly.

“Doll. Wake up, Doll.”  
Unwillingly, she slapped away the hand shaking her shoulder and hesitated when she realized that it was a prosthesis. Like a Cinematic Record, the previous night’s happenings passed in front of her inner eye, and she opened her eyes and sat up. “J-Joker…”  
“Shh, Doll. Come with me. I wanna show you something.”  
She got up and allowed Joker to drag her out of the tent, where a saddled horse was waiting for them.  
“Mount,” he instructed, helped her to get onto the horse’s back and sat behind her. Then he took the reins and gently propelled the brown mare until she was walking a comfortably rocking trot.  
“Hey, Joker,” Doll yawned, rubbing her eyes and leaning back against him. “It’s still dark. What is it that you want to show me?”  
“Just wait,” he hummed mysteriously, and she closed her eyes again and waited.  
A little later, the horse stopped in its tracks and he gently touched her shoulder. “Hey, Doll. We’re here.”  
She curiously looked up at him.  
“Get down.” First, Joker jumped down to the ground himself, then he helped her to get down from the horse’s back. “Look, there.” He lifted his right hand, his prosthesis, to point at the sky and put his left arm around Doll’s shoulders.  
She looked up to the sky, at the reddish shimmer the rising sun’s rays gave it, and her good eye sparkled with veneration. “Wow. That’s gorgeous, Joker!”  
Joker smiled softly, and then he quietly started singing, “ _Tom, he was a piper’s son. He learned to play when he was young…_ ”  
“ _And all the tune that he could play_ ,” Doll joined him, smiling as well, “ _was ‘Over The Hills And Far Away.’_ ”  
“ _Over the hills and a great way off, the wind shall blow my topknot off…_ ”  
Doll lifted her head and looked up at him, her smile widening. “ _Tom, he was a piper’s son. He learned to play when he was young. And all the tune that he could play was ‘Over The Hills And Far Away.’ Over the hills and a great way off, the wind shall blow my topknot off…_ ”  
It was the song they all associated infinite memories and hopes with. The song that reflected their shared dream.  
“Joker,” she whispered happily. “It’s all over, right? We don’t have to kidnap other kids anymore, right? Then, let’s go. Let’s all go there together.”  
“Yes,” he replied just as gently, his hand stroking her hair. “Let’s all go together—over the hills and far, far away.”


End file.
